The present invention, generally, relates to computer-generated image systems and, more particularly, to a new and improved architecture for a video processor in such image systems.
Many flight simulators today use computer-generated image systems to provide a trainee pilot with a view out of a window of a mock cockpit. To maximize the training experience and to obtain a desired realism, such a computer-generated image system provides imagery that is in correspondence with the view observed by the pilot during an actual flight over the same terrain.
While it is still impossible in today's state of the art to build a computer-generated image system that realizes such an ideal capability as providing a view matching even closely that visible during an actual flight, nevertheless it is still possible to build such a system that provides the trainee pilot with effective training cues. In today's image systems, the following objectives are the most frequently sought after: first, a computer-generated image system should generate images that are free from anomalies or aliasing effects, so that the image does not exhibit stair-stepping, crawling, line break-up or scintillation.
Second, the image system architecture should be able to incorporate a translucency capability, so that clouds, smoke and dynamic shadowing effects can be introduced into a scene, thereby enhancing its realism. A translucency capability, moreover, provides appropriate changes in the scene content of an image so that, when the amount of detail in the scene is changed, a new image is introduced gradually and imperceptibly, instead of "popping" into view.
A third design objective is most important. The architectures of prior video processors limit their capability to process complex scene data within the time available for real-time operation. In a video processor for today's computer-generated image systems, such a limit on processing capability produces overloads, and the result is a loss of synchronism with the image display.